Systems for delivering media content to a group of people in a public or shared space are commonplace. For example, video display screens in public areas may be used to show news clips, advertisements and so on. Similarly, music is often played in public spaces such as cafes, restaurants and bars, as well as in retail spaces, leisure centres and similar environments. In all of these cases, the objective is to provide information or entertainment to the individuals within the audience group. Often, a computer-controlled system is employed to store, retrieve and deliver the media content to a suitable output device.
In many cases, the selection of content to be delivered is determined solely by an operator of the system. For example, the content displayed on a public video screen may be pre-selected by an operator. Similarly, the music played in a bar may be chosen by the staff, who operate the music-playing system.
In such cases, it is often an aim of the person responsible for selecting the content to choose content which matches, or reflects, the preferences of the largest possible number of individuals within the audience group. For example, a person responsible for the selection of video advertisements to be displayed on a public video screen might seek to select those advertisements he or she expects to appeal to a majority of the audience group in the vicinity of the screen at the relevant time.
Similarly, a person responsible for the selection of music to be played in a bar may have the musical tastes of the bar's customers in mind.
In practice, the individuals within the audience group may have different preferences to one another, and those preferences might span a broad range of tastes. The selection of media content that appeals to everyone in the audience group is therefore difficult. Furthermore, individuals may enter and leave the audience group over time, and consequently the distribution of preferences may be constantly changing.
So, when a staff member chooses the music played to the audience group, he or she will choose according to either his or her own tastes, or will choose music which, in their opinion, is most likely to be acceptable to the majority of the audience group present at that time.
Such an arrangement has a number of disadvantages. The audience group as a whole has no direct control or influence over the media delivery system. In some situations, such as in a bar or restaurant, individuals within the audience group may seek to influence the content selection by expressing their preferences to the person responsible for making the selection. In other situations, such as the display of video in a public space, such interaction might not be possible.
Either way, the absence of a means of effectively influencing or expressing a preference as to the media content delivered increases the risk that those members of the audience group who are dissatisfied with the selection will divert their attention away from the media content or even leave the space. Consequently, the task of selecting appropriate media for engaging the attention of, or entertaining, a changing audience group can become burdensome for the responsible person.
A number of existing systems allow members of an audience group to select or influence the media content delivered to them, thus addressing the above problem.
For example, a jukebox allows an individual to select one or more music tracks to be played from a number of available tracks. Usually, a charge is made for each track selected. Although some degree of control is possible by limiting the available tracks to a pre-selected set, the whole audience group is subjected to the choice of one individual. Thus, the preferences of the majority of the audience group are, largely, not taken into account. Jukeboxes are often considered to be unsuitable for many environments for that reason.
Other systems have been developed which are designed to take account of the preferences of a majority of, rather than an individual member of, an audience group.
In one such system, data representing the preferences of individual users of a public space is stored on a central database. Users register their entry into the space by way of an identity card and reader arrangement. The pre-stored preference data for the current users of the space, i.e. the current audience group, can be retrieved and input to a suitable algorithm which outputs a selection of media content which is, as far as is possible, aligned with the preferences of the audience group.
While this system is capable of taking account of the preferences of all of the users of the space, it requires each user to explicitly register their preferences in advance for storage on the database. Furthermore, users must register their presence in the space in order for their preferences to be taken into account, and registration itself requires relatively complex and expensive hardware in the form of identity cards. It is therefore not suitable for use in spaces which do not have a regular group of users.
In another system (“Jukola: democratic music choice in a public space”: Symposium on Designing Interactive Systems, Proceedings of the 5th conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques, Cambridge, Mass., USA Pages: 145-154, 2004), members of the audience group are provided with voting devices. The voting devices display a small number of options for media content to be delivered. For example, when used in a bar or similar environment, the voting devices may display a small number of music tracks to be played next. Individuals within the audience group indicate their preference for the media content to be delivered by selecting one of the options, and the voting devices send the selection information to a central computer. The central computer processes the selection information to determine the most popular option, and the appropriate media content is then scheduled for delivery.
Again, this system requires a complex and expensive hardware set-up including, in some circumstances, a large number of voting devices.
It is against this background that the present invention has been devised.